Efeitos da utilização de enzima fosfolipase na fabricação de queijo Minas Frescal

Abstract

Minas Frescal Cheese is one of the most popular and consumed cheeses in Brazil and has a yield ranging from 15 to 20 kg of cheese per 100 kg of milk. Cheese yield is a determinant of the profitability of dairy factories; therefore, different methods have been employed in order to achieve better results. Two distinct treatments were performed: control, without the addition of commercial phospholipase (control), and with the enzyme; both treatments being applied to the same batch of milk. Measure-ments of current yield (kg cheese / 100 kg milk), current yield adjusted for common humidity, physicochemical, microbiological and sensory tests were performed to compare the two treatments. The use of phospholipase in cheese production in-creased the current adjusted yield by 3.38% and significantly decreased whey fat loss (P <0.05). In contrast, no changes in physicochemical properties were observed between control cheeses and those produced with commercial phospholipase. The addition of phospholipase had a significant influence (P <0.05) on the count of meso-philic and total coliform microorganisms. Acceptance and preference showed no sig-nificant differences between treatments. Therefore, the experiment reinforces the importance of studies that can evaluate the impact of phospholipases as a technolo-gy adjunct in the production of typical Brazilian cheeses, since the results corroborate the literature data regarding the yield and recovery of fat in the production of phos-pholipase cheese. From the microbiological point of view the experiment points to an influence of phospholipases on certain groups of microorganisms, which may be in-teresting from an industrial point of view, especially for Minas Frescal cheese. Thus, the use of phospholipase in cheese production proves to be a possible technological alternative to improve yield and quality, without considerable sensory changes in the final product.